Railing for stairways



Jan. 20, 195 9 I s. F. A. SPANGBERG 2,859,829 RAILING FOR STAIRWAYS Filed April 7, 1955.

INVENTOR Sven FOLKE AUGUSTSPANGBERG ATTQRNEY 7 7 United States Patent RAILING FOR STAIRWAYS Sven Folke August Spangberg, Wattholma, Sweden Application April 7, 1955, Serial No. 499,998

1 Claim. (Cl. 256-65) This invention relates to a railing for stairways.

More particularly this invention relates to a railing intended for curved stairways and comprising a hand rail and supporting members, such as posts or wall brackets.

One object of the invention is to provide a railing of said type the hand rail of which is easy to erect at the building place without necessitating use of any complicated tools.

A further object of the'invention is to provide a railing of said type which is easy to erect at the building place and nevertheless when mounted has excellent stability and strength. 7

Further objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description considered in connection with the accompanying drawing which forms parts of this specification and of which:

Fig. 1 is a front elevational view of a spiral stairway provided with a railing embodying this invention.

Fig. 2 is an enlarged perspective view of a portion of the railing sectioned along line II-II of Fig. 1, part of the handrail comprised in said portion of the railing being assumed cut away.

Referring to the drawings, 10 designates a spiral stairway erected around a support column 12. The stairway is provided with a railing following the curvature of the stairway, the hand rail 14 of said railing being supported by posts 16 rigidly secured to the treads of the stairway. If the stairway extends along a wall, the posts 16 may be replaced by wall brackets of a type well known in the art.

The hand rail 14 is composed of two wires or flexible rails 18 having a diameter of 6-7 millimetres, for example, and longitudinally extending side by side in spaced relation. Said wires or rails which have predetermined resilient properties and are suitably made of spring steel wire, are rigidly secured to the upper free ends of the posts by means of clamp collars enclosing said wires or rails. Said clamp collars consist of two superimposed strip pieces 20, 22, each of said pieces having a central opening 24 penetrated by a screw 26 adapted to enter a threaded axial bore 28 axially extending from the free end face of the posts. The lower strip piece has a plane central portion 30 adapted to abut against the end face of the post, and bent-up end portions formed so as to fit to the contour of the wires or rails 18. The upper strip piece 22 has also a central portion 32 formed in the embodiment shown so as to be insertable downwards be-' tween the wires or rails 18, and on both sides of said central portion said piece has its free end portions bent so as to follow the outer contour of the wires or rails 18. Between said posts the wires or rails 18 have their up per portions covered by spacers 34 made of rubber or a similarly elastic artificial plastic material. The thickness of said spacers corresponds to the difierence between the radial extension of the clamp collars and that of the spaced wires or rails enclosed by said clamp collars so as to form an even unbroken surface along the whole length of the hand rail body composed of said wires or rails and said clamp collars. The outer face of said spacers 34 is covered by a coating 36 which also may be made of rubber or some other elastic artificial plastic material and which may have the form of a tube provided with a longitudinal slit permitting to force the coating over the hand rail body.

The assembling of the railing constructed as described hereinbefore is effected in a most simple way by securing the wires or flexible rails 18 onto a post, for example the lowest one of the stairway and then to draw said wires or rails to the next following post and to fix them there by means of a clamp collar. Since a single wire or flexible rail oflers but little resistance against the deformation necessary to force it to follow the curvature-of the stairway, a relatively small force is suflicient to erect the railing. Due to the resilient properties of the wires or rails an even curve can be attained without application of any mold or pattern. Possibly required adjustments are easy to eflfect due to the construction of the clamp collars. It is also an easy task to attach the spacers 34 and the coating 36. If the material of said parts is thermoplastic they may be heated before attach in a water bath in order to soften them and to facilitate their fitting into their definite place.

While one more or less specific embodiment of the invention has been shown it is to be understood that this is for purpose of illustration only and that the invention is not to be limited thereby, but its scope is to be determined by the appended claim.

What I claim is:

A stairway railing comprising a pair of spaced substantially parallel rail members, spaced clamp collars connecting said rail members and having fastening means associated therewith for engagement with a suitable support, spacing members embracing said rail members between said clamp collars, and a plastic covering member embracing said spacing members and said clamp collars to form a continuous hand railing.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,292,034 Peirce Jan. 21, 1919 1,293,138 McArthur Feb. 4, 1919 2,603,455 Welch July 15, 1952 FOREIGN PATENTS $67,071 Great Britain Ian. 26, 1945 

